You have to start out any discussion on this topic with the acknowledgement that the conspiracy theorists will never be satisfied. That is the nature of the game. Any explanation is turned into further evidence of the conspiracy. That's what makes it fun for them and annoying for everyone else. There is no proving them wrong no matter how wrong they are.

That being said, there's this argument: if Barack Obama's Hawai'i birth certificate, the one that looks just like the birth certificates of every baby born in Hawai'i from 1961 through today, is not enough to prove his citizenship, how come the same form has worked for the rest of us?

OK, no one else born in Hawai'i has ever been president before, but that same type of birth certificate has been used by, what, over a million people born here in Hawai'i to apply for employment, Social Security benefits, driver's licenses and passports. It is legal documentation used to get veterans' benefits, welfare benefits, marriage licenses and school applications. It is widely accepted proof of our citizenship.

Birth certificates, or "certificates of live birth" differ from state to state. There is no standard nationwide form because keeping track of such things is a local issue, not a federal responsibility. Hawai'i, like some other Mainland states, doesn't issue a "long form" birth certificate with the attending doctor's signature. Go check yours if you were born here after Hawaii became a state. Maybe you got a fancy certificate with the baby footprint and a cartoon stork in the corner that bears the signature of a physician, but that didn't come from the state Department of Health. The piece of paper signed by the attending physician doesn't get photocopied and handed out at the vital statistics records window at the Health Department ... and it sure doesn't get handed out to non-relatives. In other states, you can go to the records department and get birth certificates for people you don't even know, which is a little mind-blowing and fraught with peril. But not here.

Which could be how this whole Obama birth certificate craziness got so big. Secrecy and unobtainable documents are the lifeblood of a good conspiracy theory. Throw in the fact that people don't believe Hawai'i counts as part of America (this month, Public Policy Polling reported 8 percent of voters polled in North Carolina don't believe Hawai'i is a state ... the question got so much attention they're trying it out in other states) and you've got fertile media in which to grow a virulent conspiracy.

No matter what, the "birthers" will never accept Obama's Hawai'i birth certificate as proof of his natural born American citizenship. Luckily, it hasn't been a problem for the rest of Hawai'i-born Americans with that same green state-issued form.